This year's November in Austria and Switzerland will go down in history as the November with the least precipitation since measurements began. Temperatures were well above average at higher altitudes, but a little too cold for the time of year in the high fog basins.
Ischgl opened on schedule last weekend as one of the few ski resorts without a glacier and celebrated the achievements of snowmaking technology, while a few kilometers up the valley in Galtür large areas of forest were on fire.
Due to the radiant weather that has persisted for weeks, the snow cover in Tyrol, where it exists, now consists more or less entirely of deep snow with a little surface snow on top as a bonus. Southern expositions are free of snow far up into the high mountains.
"Several centimetres of snow" possible
It can certainly be seen as a sign of the times when the media excitedly report prospects of "several centimetres of snow" at the weekend. After all, studying the weather maps is exciting again: the models jump back and forth from run to run between lots, little and no snow at all - the dreariness of the huge permanent high is finally over. While recently there was still the possibility of a low dripping down towards the Mediterranean, the models currently seem to agree that a clear change to a west-northwesterly flow is imminent from the weekend.
A low pressure system over Scandinavia is responsible for this, which will finally bring us cooler air. How much precipitation will result depends on the path of smaller peripheral disturbances that may or may not graze the Alpine region. At the moment, it doesn't look as if all of the missing November precipitation will be delivered at once, but it's a well-known fact that small animals make manure and it will be interesting to see whether the oracle makes a statement in the near future.
Potential storm low in the north
While people in the Alps would probably be happy about a bit of winter chaos by now, the far north of Germany is more likely to experience chaotic weather. For the middle of next week, it currently looks like there will be a major storm on the Baltic coast. Although the temperature differences are not particularly large, extreme pressure differences of around 50hPa are calculated at times between northern and southern Germany. This means that the storm could well reach the magnitude and thus the damage potential of a Kyrill.
